vegetables » Israeli Kitchen

Cardoon and Potato Gratin

Eating Local, vegetables, Vegetarian 3 Responses »

Mar 022011

Doing folkloric things tickles me. A pot of rue placed to the right of the entrance – sure-fire way to avert the Evil Eye. Stuffing mallows like grape leaves once a year to keep up the tradition. Things like that.

So when I saw cardoons in the Petach Tikvah shuk this week, I decided to stop ignoring them, as in years past, and cook ‘em already.

Cardoons are the stems of a thistle related to artichokes. Which are thistles. But the cardoon flower is negligible and the leaves horribly bitter. To eat cardoons, you must cut the thorny parts of the stem off and peel away the celery-like fibers. What a load of work. And that with the luxury of buying them with the thorns already shaved off.

Cardoons must be pre-cooked before starting the recipe, to get rid of excess bitterness. The resulting taste is so delicate, so subtle, that you must not overwhelm it with loads of onions or cheese. Or garlic. In fact, it’s so darned delicate that you can hardly taste it. Did I do something wrong here?

All the same, I peeled, cooked, and baked cardoons and potatoes in a cream sauce enriched with shallots and cheese. It was tasty. But worth the effort? I don’t know. You judge.

Cardoon and Potato Gratin

Ingredients:

8-10 cardoon stalks, trimmed of thorny sides and with fibers on the stalks peeled away. A sharp knife, just slid down the backs, removes most of the stringy fibers.

2 large potatoes, cut into sticks about the shape of your forefinger

1 cup grated Parmesan or cheddar cheese, out of which reserve 1/4 cup

1 cup milk

1 cup light cream

1 shallot, finely minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

freshly-ground black pepper

Juice of 1 lemon

1. Have ready a bowl of cold water with the lemon juice in it.

2. Cut the stalks into thick slices diagonally and toss them into the bowl of lemon water as you work, to keep them from turning brown.

3. Peel the potatoes and cut them into sticks about the shape of french fries. Chop the shallot finely.

4. Have ready a large pot of boiling salted water. Cook the cardoons in it, covered, for 10 minutes or until barely tender. Drain well.

4. Mix the cardoons, potatoes, shallot, 3/4 cup of grated cheese, milk, cream, salt and pepper.

5. Prepare a gratin dish by lining it with baking paper, or grease it heavily. Pour the vegetables into it.

6. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed. Scatter the remaining 1/4 cup grated cheese over top.

7. Bake at 425 F – 220 C for 45 minutes – 1 hour, till the potatoes are cooked through.

Ratatouille

Everyday Cooking, vegetables, Vegetarian 2 Responses »

Feb 172011

Just an eggplant and me. It was a slender young thing, all in shiny dark purple. Almost too beautiful to slice up.

But I was hungry.

Ratatouille takes minutes to prepare. It’s deliciously Mediterranean, redolent of olive oil. It’s filling. And low-carb.

I sharpened my knife.

Ratatouille

4 servings

Ingredients:

1 eggplant weighing about 350 grams

1 large onion

2 slender zucchini

2 large, very ripe tomatoes

1 large, red, bell pepper or (1 medium red and 1 medium green)

2 garlic cloves, minced

Olive oil

salt & pepper

Method:

Cut the eggplant into slices as thick as your thumb. Cut each slice in half.

Slice the onion into thick rings; halve each slice.

Cut the zukes into slices the same width as the eggplant, but do not halve.

Chop the tomatoes into rough chunks. Do the same with the bell pepper.

Mince the garlic.

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a wide pan. Add onions and fry till starting to soften. Add all the other vegetables, including garlic.

Drizzle a little more olive oil in. Cook for 5 minutes over a medium flame, stirring once in a while.

Cover pot, lower flame, and cook without uncovering for 15 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper, stir, cover again, and cook another minute or two. Taste for seasoning. Ratatouille is done when the eggplant is cooked through and everything is kind of soupy.

Pronto! Eat hot, at room temperature, or cold, with crusty bread to mop up the sauce.

Eggplant Stuffed With Burgul and Dried Fruit

Tu B'Shvat, vegetables, Vegetarian 10 Responses »

Jan 192011

For our Tu B’Shvat feast, I thought I’d stuff an eggplant. I saw this gorgeous shiny purple “baladi” – prime – eggplant in the shuk. Brought it home, set it down on the kitchen counter, and contemplated it.

I could imagine layering it, fried, with cheese. Doing something tomato-saucy.

Umm, too much. Too big to chop up into ratatouille. We would be eating ratatouille for weeks. Too big for babah ganoush for the same reason. Too big to grill. Too big, too big, too big. There’s only three of us in the house these days. What was I thinking?

But it looked so good.

Then I recalled a fruity bulgur salad that was sitting in the fridge. It was full of chopped nuts and fruit and chives and celery. Hmmm. Wheat. Walnuts. Currants. Sounds like Tu B’Shvat to me. So I stuffed and baked the purple monster with fruity bulgur and let me tell you, it was good. We didn’t have any trouble eating it up. If you’re fond of eggplant, try this one.

Eggplant Stuffed with Fruity Bulgur

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant

olive oil

1/2 cup medium-grade bulgur

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup boiling water

1/3 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1/4 cup raisins or currants

1 celery stalk

1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons minced chives or 1 shallot

1/2 red apple

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon cumin

dash cinnamon

1. Place the bulgur in a heatproof bowl with the salt and mix. Pour the boiling water over it and cover the bowl. Leave it alone for 1/2 hour.

2. Meantime, toast the sunflower seeds in a medium oven for 5 minutes. Chop the walnuts coarsely and the celery and apple finely (don’t peel the apple). Chop the chives (or shallot).

3. Pour some of the lemon juice over the apples to prevent browning. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, cover, and set aside.

4. Remove the green cap from the eggplant. Slice the eggplant in half horizontally. Cut away the pulp, leaving a thin shell inside. Chop the pulp finely and add it to the fruit bowl. Mix well.

5. Brush the insides of the eggplant halves with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and grind some pepper over all.

6. Fluff the cooked bulgur up with a fork. Add it to the fruit/eggplant bowl and mix well. Drizzle more olive oil into it, mix, and taste for seasoning. Add more salt, pepper, honey, cumin or cinnamon to taste.

7. Stuff the eggplants, tamping the bulgur mixture down with your hands to keep it firm. Drizzle yet another little olive oil over all.

8. Tuck a strip of tin foil tightly around each half. Bake at 350° F – 180° C for 1 to 1-1/2 hour, depending on size of eggplant. When the meat on the shells and the chopped eggplant in the stuffing is tender and an appetizing odor of “cooked” arises, it’s done.

Remove the tin foil and bake another 10 minutes to make the top crisp.

The stuffing tends to crumble when first taken out of the oven. To slice firm portions, allow the dish to cool and then re-heat it. Good at room temperature too.

Pan-Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli

vegetables, Vegetarian 2 Responses »

Dec 102010

Skies are grey, rain sprinkles down, and storms are promised for the weekend. Do we feel gloomy? No! We’re thrilled. Let it rain, let it come.

Winter vegetables are now worth cooking. This past long summer, you had to get to the shuk early, before the produce wilted on the stands. Leafy greens had big holes in them where bugs had been noshing. Root vegetables looked stunted. But everything’s reviving with the colder nights and rain. Cauliflower and broccoli looked especially tempting this week, so I brought some of each home for lunch last week. I found inspiration for the recipe in one of my favorite sites, 101 Cookbooks.

Pan-Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli

4 servings

Ingredients:

1 small cauliflower

1 medium-sized bunch of broccoli

Olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 clove of garlic

2 scallions

Freshly-ground black pepper

zest of 1 lemon

Method:

1. Cut away the leaves from the cauliflower (don’t throw them away) and cut the stem off. Break the head up into small florets no bigger than the first joint of your pinkie finger. Do the same with the broccoli. Keep the florets all about the same size, so that they’ll cook evenly. Rinse and drain.

2. Chop the scallions finely. Chop the garlic finely and use the edge of your knife to mash it.

3. Pour a dollop of olive oil into a large skillet and heat it up for a couple of minutes. Add the cauliflower and broccoli and stir gently to coat them with oil. Keep the flame medium-high. Leave the vegetables alone a minute or so, then lift a few to see if they’re starting to color at the bottom. If not, give it another minute. Sauté another five minutes , stirring gently.

4. Add the garlic and scallions and stir; cook only another minute. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if needed.

5. Remove from the heat. Grind a little pepper over all and stir in the lemon zest.

Serve right away.

.…So what’s with those cauliflower leaves?

Well, I’m always surprised that people throw them out. Steamed and with a little olive oil or butter drizzled over them, they’re a fine vegetable side dish.

2 Recipes: Spiced Olives and Potatoes with Olives

Appetizers, Everyday Cooking, vegetables, Vegetarian, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 9 Responses »

Nov 062010

My neighbors and I cook at around the same time of day, and our cooking smells waft around the building. I stick my head out the kitchen window and sniff judgementally. One neighbor’s food smells great, with sharp notes of onions, turmeric, cumin. Another’s cooking is so bland it depresses me. (Boiling potatoes again, are we? Don’t you get tired of boiled potatoes?)

Yesterday, Friday, every woman was cooking for Shabbat. Naturally, she needs to put something nutritious, filling, and cheap on the table. Potatoes suit the menu every time. I looked at my potato bin. This Friday, I was bored with them. I needed some potato inspiration.

Flipping through my cookbooks, I found an interesting recipe in Joyce Goldstein’s Saffron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean. Actually, it’s two recipes in one, because first you must prepare spiced olives, then add them to potatoes and cook them together.

Goldstein’s recipe calls for crushing whole olives with the flat of a cleaver or a mallet, then soaking them overnight. I didn’t have time for that and figured that canned, pitted olives would release plenty of their salt with a few good rinses. So they did. And the dish was very good. It has the advantage of being vegetarian and pareve, for everyday meals as well as for Shabbat. And the olives, you can serve serve and eat as an appetizer all by themselves.

Spiced Olives

Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients:

2 cups of pitted olives

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large bay leaf

2 cloves of garlic

½ teaspoon sweet paprika

A large pinch of cayenne pepper and/or ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Juice of ½ lemon

Method:

Rinse the olives thoroughly, three times in cold, running water. Drain them.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or shallow pot, over a low flame.

Cook the bay leaf, garlic, paprika and cayenne or pepper for 3 minutes.

Add the olives to the skillet and cook for 5 minutes, turning them over occasionally.

Remove from the fire and let cool. Put the olives, with the bits of garlic clinging to them, in a clean dish.

Add the lemon juice; mix.

You may store the spiced olives in the refrigerator for a week if kept in a clean, dry jar.

Potatoes Stewed with Olives

Serves 6

Ingredients:

The olive oil left from cooking spiced olives, or 3 tablespoons fresh olive oil

1 large onion

2 ½ lb. – 1 kg. potatoes, unpeeled but scrubbed and sliced 1 inch (2 centimeters) wide.

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 cups spiced olives

¼ cup finely chopped parsley or celery leaves

Method:

Chop the onion finely. Sauté it for 5 minutes in the skillet where the spiced olives cooked, with their oil returned to it. If using fresh oil, sauté the onions in 3 tablespoons of oil.

Add the potatoes and the spices. Don’t add salt – the olives will add enough.

Add water to halfway up the potatoes, and bring to a boil.

Cover the skillet, lower the flame, and cook the potatoes 15 minutes.

Add the olives and cook another 10 minutes, turning everything over once or twice.

Check to make sure the potatoes are tender; give them a few more minutes if necessary, but don’t let them get mushy.

Sprinkle the dish with the chopped parsley. Serve hot.

Sweet Potato and Celery Soup

Soup, vegetables, Vegetarian 7 Responses »

Oct 112010

Come autumn, a housewife’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of soup. Like me. I’m all in favor of soup, especially easy soups that make the best of seasonal vegetables. …Like this one. It’s worth making extra and freezing it for winter days and nights ahead, when a little nutritious comfort food is what you’ll be craving.

Sweet Potato and Celery Soup

printable version here

4 servings

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled

3 celery stalks

2 medium fresh tomatoes or 4 halves of slow-roasted tomatoes

1 large onion

1 bay leaf

a pinch of thyme

salt and pepper to taste

Leaves from one celery stalk

Method:

1. Slice the onion thinly. Chop the celery and tomatoes.

2. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot and sauté the vegetables, including the sweet potatoes, in it.

3. Add salt, a few grinds of pepper, and the bay leaf.

4. Add water and cook for 30 minutes. When all the vegetables are very tender, taste the soup and add salt if needed. Add the thyme. Cook another 5 minutes.

6. Remove about 12 whole sweet potato slices and pieces of tomato from the soup and put aside. Cool the soup and blend it in the blender or food processor. If you have a stick blender, you can just turn off the flame and blend the soup right there in the pot.

7. Chop the celery leaves for garnish. Before serving, add 2 or 3 of the reserved sweet potato slices and a little of the tomato to each bowl. Scatter the chopped celery leaves over all and sit down to savor your soup.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

Rosh HaShana, vegetables, Vegetarian, What's Cooking for Shabbos and Yom Tov 9 Responses »

Aug 292010

How about Rosh HaShanah Lite this year? The High Holidays are starting off right before Shabbat, so we’re looking at a three days of festive eating. But does it have to be three days of heavy eating? It gets to the point where all you want to do is lie down and digest, instead of putting your mind to the state of your soul.

We all have cherished holiday recipes, foods that the family looks forward to and whose taste is inextricably tangled up with memories of holidays past. Even if they’re infused with fat and sugar, we’ll serve them. But the meal can remain reasonably light if only one such dish is placed on the table, and if plenty of attractive salads and cooked vegetables are served.

In the spirit of lighter eating, then, here’s an easy carrot salad made tangy with lemon and pungent with cumin. It’s part of every mezze in Israeli restaurants and Sephardic homes.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

From Saffron Shores: Jewish Cooking of the Southern Mediterranean

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

1/2 kilo – 1 lb. peeled carrots

1 clove garlic

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt

Method:

1. Cut the carrots into thick slices; peel the garlic clove and crush it with the side of a heavy knife.

2. Have a saucepan with salted boiling water ready; cook the carrots and garlic in it for 10 minutes or until the carrot is tender.

3. Drain the carrots and garlic – save the cooking water for rice or cooking another vegetable, or use it as part of the liquid in stock. Place them in a deep bowl.

4. Immediately, season them with the lemon juice, spices, and olive oil, stirring gently. Add salt little by little, to taste.

Serve at chilled or at room temperature.

Peperonata

Everyday Cooking, Useful Flavorings and Relishes, vegetables, Vegetarian No Responses »

Jan 232009

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This is such an easy dish. You don’t need to make a lot, just choose two or three colors of ripe bell peppers. Have ready a handful of basil leaves, olive oil, 1 clove of garlic per pepper, salt and black pepper. If basil isn’t in season, a dusting of oregano does very well instead.

Rinse your peppers; slice them into wide strips.

Sauté them till they are tender, over a medium flame, in olive oil. Stir once in a while to prevent scorching. This should take about 15 minutes.

Peel and chop the garlic coarsely. Add it to the peppers and stir again. Let the garlic cook in the scant juices of the peppers, but keep a sharp eye on it so it won’t burn.

Season with herbs and salt and black pepper.

In 2 or 3 minutes more, it’s done.

Serve these savory, colorful peppers warm or cold as a piquant note to your meal. Or layer them into a vegetarian sandwich with feta cheese and a fat slice of ripe tomato. Or make bruschetta with slices of toasted bread and serve as an appetizer.

Majadra: Lentils and Rice

Everyday Cooking, vegetables, Vegetarian 14 Responses »

Dec 152008

In every Middle Eastern country, people love the vegetarian combination of lentils and rice topped with fried onions. It’s tasty, satisfying, and nutritious. Recipes vary from country to country and indeed from cook to cook. Some cooks keep it simple and some enjoy making it elaborate with spices and herbs. The name also varies from region to region: I’ve heard the dish called Majadra, Majadehra, and Mujaderah. My Moroccan consuegra calls it Majadra, so I do too. To save fuel, people cook the rice and lentils together, but I like to cook them separately. That way the dish looks more attractive.

If I want a side dish, I’ll serve it about 2/3 rice to 1/3 lentils, as in the photo above. Actually I just mix it by eye, till I judge that there are enough lentils. Leftover lentils freeze well.

For a substantial main dish, I use proportions of 50/50%. Traditionally majadra is served with yoghurt. To this, add a cooked vegetable or a salad, and you have a complete protein and an inexpensive, balanced meal.

Majadra

serves 6

Lentils:

3/4 cup brown or black lentils

1 bay leaf

2 cups water

2 onions

More olive oil

1 tsp. powdered cumin

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

salt, pepper to taste

1. Pick over and rinse the lentils. Simmer them in the water, with the bay leaf, till they are soft but not mushy. Depending on the quality of the lentils, this might take 30-40 minutes. Do not add salt. Add more water if it looks like they’re drying out, but if they finish cooking and there’s water left over, just drain them and return them to the pot.

Add salt to taste after the lentils are done. Remove the bay leaf.

Rice

1 1/2 cups rice

2 Tblsp. olive oil

3 cups water, boiling

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1. Rinse the rice and allow it to drain almost dry.

2. Heat the oil gently and add the rice, stirring to coat the grains with oil.

3. When the rice has become transparent, add the garlic. Stir half a minute, then add the salt and the water.

4. Bring to a boil, then cover the pot and lower the flame to the lowest setting. Cook the rice till all the water has evaporated and the grains are tender and separate.

Now slice the onions thinly.

Pour 2 Tblsp. olive oil into a non-stick pan and carmelize the onions over the lowest possible flame, stirring once in a while. You want them very soft and golden, not brown and crisp.

When the onions are done – 10-15 minutes – add the cumin, cinnamon, and a little salt and pepper.

Final step: fluff the rice with a fork. Combine the cooked lentils and the rice, mixing gently with the fork so as not to mash them. Stir some of the carmelized onion in, and top the dish with the rest of the onions.

Options:

I’ve never seen a recipe including cilantro, but occasionally I chop 1/2 cup of cilantro leaves and add them to the onions a minute before taking them off the flame.
Another thing I sometimes do is add a little powdered turmeric to the onions.
You can also add small amounts 1/4- 1/2 tsp. - of grated fresh ginger root and powdered cinnamon, if the fit takes you; that’s also traditional in some countries.
Majadra is even more delicious if you carmelize the onions in a mixture of butter and olive oil, or drizzle a little melted butter over the dish before serving. Owch – that wasn’t a calorie pinching me, was it?

Crisp-Skinned Potatoes

Just Hungry, vegetables, Vegetarian No Responses »

Nov 132008

One potato, two potato, three potato, four… When you’re cooking with baby potatoes, you need to look at a bunch of them and calculate how many you’ll need per serving. I figure on 4- 6, depending on their size.

This is a quick and easy way to make delicious, crisp-skinned baby potatoes. Coarse salt adds an enjoyable crunch to the dish, while scallions add flavor and a green accent.

There is a secret to success here, and I will reveal it. Read on.

Crisp-Skinned Potatoes serves 4

Ingredients:

16 baby potatoes

1/4 cup olive oil

1 Tblsp. kosher or coarse sea salt

A few grinds of black pepper, or 1/4 tsp. powdered

1 bunch of scallions, washed and chopped coarsely

Boil the potatoes till just tender. This will take 7-10 minutes. Test for tenderness with a knife, and do not cook till soft.

Drain the potatoes immediately, keeping them in the pot. Now take the pot back to the fire, and shake the potatoes in the pot till they dry out. This will take 3 or 4 minutes. When the skins of the potatoes have cracked slightly and there are a few white streaks on the inside of the pot, turn the flame off, but keep the potatoes in the pot, covered. This is the big secret. By drying them like this, you are carmelizing the potatoes slightly, which brings out their full flavor. Their skins will toast in the oil and become extra-crisp.

Now, heat the oil in a skillet, over a medium flame. When it shimmers, place the potatoes in the skillet. Careful not to let it shpritz! Sauté the spuds, shaking the skillet occasionally. Lower the flame if it seems too hot. When the bottoms are crisp, turn them over. Sprinkle the coarse salt over them, and season further with black pepper. The potatoes will absorb the oil and their skins will be golden-brown and crisp all over.

Just before taking the potatoes off the flame to serve, stir the chopped scallions into the skillet. Let them wilt. Serve, and listen to everyone say “Yum!”.